The sky’s the limit with a rural apprenticeship!
February 8, 2024
No two days are the same on a rural apprenticeship. For Callum, who completes his placement with Cumbria Wildlfie Trust this spring, a ‘typical’ month included mountain skills training, fencing and a day in parliament.
In autumn we welcomed six new apprentices to our Green Futures Rural Apprenticeship programme. The new recruits are placed with different employers across the Dales and wider areas, and vary in age between 16 and 22. Like Callum, they will also attend college to complete a Countryside Worker qualification, and will gain a wealth of experience and certified skills during their time with us.
Here’s an extract from Callum’s work diary – a first hand account of life as a rural apprentice!
3rd October – another visit to Staveley school (my old primary school!)
This time we were going on little bug hunts! We started the day drawing on the chalk board in the outdoor classroom all the little insects we thought we’d see, things like slugs, snails, worms, millipedes, centipedes, spiders etc.
You can see the little board above, with a section to allow kids to tally them up.
The kids seemed excited to see us again after last week, we got some pretty interesting finds and the children were really engaged with us. We found spiders, a little moth hiding under a rock! As well as a butterfly flying around.
These two days have been very interesting and I’ve loved being able to go back to my old Primary School and meet teachers I used to get taught by, this time helping them teach the children!
7th – 8th October – Fungi skills weekend
I drove up the work Astra on Saturday, which was a little bit daunting but the drive was good and I got there safely and in time!
The first day went through the names of different features, like the caps, stalks, gills etc. Then we spent a good chunk of the day outside ID’ing mushrooms that we found out in the field!
Here are a few standouts: Puffballs and Earthballs (pictured right below), I didn’t actually know there was a difference but now I realize there is a big difference. We found quite a few milk caps, some stag horn fungi (pictured left below) and a mushroom called the ‘jelly baby’ (pictured middle below).
10-11 October – mountain skills course
The focus of this course is to allow you to be safe and confident in your own ability as well as be able to help and support others that might be out with you, and need some assistance.
The start of the first day was more of an introduction to the course, talking about our plans over the two days, setting our route for the first day and looking at how the weather might affect our route. This was quite interesting and it does require some level of knowledge of the mountain you’re climbing, but it allowed us to use the wind to our advantage ensuring it was behind us as we were on the ascent and not the descent. We also covered the equipment that you might want to take with you on a trip like this, flashlights, spare batteries, food, spare clothes, first aid kit, maps of the area and more.
The first climb was Wetherlam, somewhere I’d never been before. Throughout these two days we never really had a lunch stop, we just had multiple quick stops to grab a bite. This was to make sure we didn’t stay still too long in the wet and wind, but also to make sure our energy was spread throughout the day.
The second day we were in the Langdale’s, climbing Harrison Sickle. On the way down from Harrison Sickle we checked out a little pond that was nearby, and ended up finding a large tent that had been dumped into the pond. We constructed quite a large pole by tying together to a few walking sticks and reaching for the cords of the tent. It took us about 15minutes and multiple people trying to pull the tent towards us but we did eventually manage.
Once we pulled it out, we all quickly realized that it absolutely stank and soon after realized the tent was actually completely full to the brim with rubbish. This was everything from un eaten noodles and crisps, to a vape and old clothes.
Definitely an eventful way to end the day but I’m glad that we managed to tidy up the hillside, I just wish people weren’t so careless and, in this case, actively harmful toward the environment.
I really enjoyed this course, it never felt too long despite the long length of the days. I feel like I learnt quite a bit and am one hundred percent more confident in myself when it comes to mountain climbing.
26 October – Houses of Parliament, London
Once we arrived and entered the building we had to go through a security check, which is the first time I’ve ever been through one.
We then set up our stalls in the meeting room we had booked, this was one stall for Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Cheshire Wildlife Trust. Lancashire being the Wildlife Trust that organized the event ended up with by far the most involvement from MPs and their staff.
This does also make sense as Cumbria only has a few Candidates throughout the county compared to the other more population dense counties. We still got a couple of opportunities to talk to some of the other MP’s from different counties which was a good experience.
I really enjoyed this day, although I certainly would’ve been nice to have some candidates from Cumbria attend, we did receive letters/emails from candidates that stated they wouldn’t be able to make it but were still interested in having a catch up talk at a later date.
Outside of that getting to meet members of staff from the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Cheshire Wildlife Trust was amazing and having such a large presence at a venue like this was felt impactful on it’s own.
Like the sound of a Rural Apprenticeship?
We’ll be looking for young people to join our Rural Apprenticeship Scheme in September 2024, with various opportunities at fantastic organisations in the Yorkshire Dales, south Cumbria and Nidderdale. Find out more about Rural Apprenticeships and keep an eye on our jobs page for vacancies.
